News

University of Nebraska researcher helping develop virtual replica corn field

A researcher at the University of Nebraska is helping develop the first virtual replica of a corn field.

James Schnable tells Brownfield…

“What we want the digital model to do is tell us a lot about how a plant is growing in a particular environment,” he says.

In the past researchers have relied on crop growth models to predict crop performance. Schnable says the digital twin model will help researchers overcome limitations on the number of field tests they can run.

“For a farmer, that’s valuable because they can track throughout the growing season how their crop is doing. That can help them make decisions about things like whether or not it makes sense to side dress nitrogen, what they think their ultimate yield is going to be, so they can start hedging in the futures market things like that,” he says.

He says a working prototype is already in place.

“We’re going to be scaling up that model, both in terms of being able to simulate more things about the corn plant and the environment, and also doing more testing to make sure that the predictions of the model actually line up with what happens when we put corn plants in the field,” he says.

Schnable along with researchers Baskar Ganapathysubramanian of Iowa State and Bedrich Benes of Purdue University, have received a $2 million grant from the National Science Foundation to advance the project.

The model will utilize 3D simulations and digital reconstruction of plants through technology at the AI Institute for Resilient Agriculture, based at Iowa State.